Nora Ephron

I once went out to dinner with Nora and a few friends. The salad on the menu had candied walnuts, back when candied walnuts were a recent phenomenon. Everyone was ordering the salad because of the walnuts. When the waiter got to Nora, she asked for double walnuts. It wouldn’t have occurred to the rest of us to do that — to ask for a little more from life. She was constantly handing out her own version of double walnuts. She was very generous to many people — most of all to young female writers — advising and supporting them in their endeavors. Nora was an important feminist. She became a film director when there weren’t many women doing that, and in all her work, she told the truth about women’s lives. She made her friends and admirers want to be better. We have to be better on our own now, but it was so much fun when Nora was around to help.

Wolitzer’s novel This Is Your Life was adapted for the screen by Ephron in her directorial debut, This Is My Life